


Antichrist

by NoRoleModels



Series: Enantiodromia [1]
Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anti-Hero, Antichrist, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Character Death, Christianity, Dubious Morality, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Horror, Inspired by Berserk & Eva too, Inspired by Dark Souls (Video Game), MC's name is different in this fic, Medical Trauma, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, So is FeMC's, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:39:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26841529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoRoleModels/pseuds/NoRoleModels
Summary: "I remember how it felt, coming back after the first time I died. I don't know how many times I've died since then. But these days, I'm less afraid of the death than I am of the resurrection."Behold, a pale horse! His name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed him.Upon his back, he bears the memory of those fool enough to have entrusted him with their lives. He stands against the shadows cast by Heaven's light, and at the end of the world, armies shall be raised under his banner.For he possesses power and authority over life and death, and it is he who shall determine the fate of Man upon the coming Fall. May salvation reach him, lest he remain enshadowed forever.[P3 AU where the MC can respawn upon death]
Relationships: Arisato Minako/Arisato Minato, Arisato Minako/Yuuki Makoto, Arisato Minato/Elizabeth, Arisato Minato/Kirijo Mitsuru, Elizabeth/Persona 3 Protagonist, Elizabeth/Yuuki Makoto (Persona Series), Kirijo Mitsuru/Persona 3 Protagonist, Kirijo Mitsuru/Yuuki Makoto
Series: Enantiodromia [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956316
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. The Dark Son of Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"The archetype is 'that which is believed always, everywhere, and by everybody,'_ _and if it is not recognized consciously, then it appears from behind in its 'wrathful' form,_ _as the dark 'son of chaos,' the evil-doer, as Antichrist instead of Savior –_ _–_ _a fact which is all too clearly demonstrated by contemporary history."_
> 
> \- Carl Jung, 1940

They keep us away from the rest of the world in cell blocks, walled off from each other through six layers of concrete. The inner walls are padded so as to prevent us from ramming our skulls into mush.

When they experiment on me, they occasionally bring her. During her first few nights, Runako had been screaming and crying, begging for answers from her parents as to why they were doing this, how they could do this, pleading to be sent home. After four nights, she stopped begging for answers and stopped responding to words.

We would normally be under sedatives for the duration of each operation, but there are times where we aren't. Where they withhold anaesthesia or other forms of medication to trigger some specific kind of physical pain upon our bodies, or something. I don't know what they want, and I don't care. I'm never able to fully understand anything, because the time I don't spend asleep is time I spend under drugs, or in too much physical pain to care to listen.

Within a few weeks, Runako's survival instinct seems to vanish completely. She only eats as much as she has to and even then I'm certain she's forcefully fed. We're stripped naked whenever we undergo these tests, and so by a month in, I can clearly see scars and stitches decorating her body like marks on a map. Her flesh is pale and filled with welts and bruises, and whatever body fat she'd had previously has abandoned her; I see her ribs pop through her flesh like gills, her limbs having become twigs covered in skin.

It's at this point her experiments differ from mine in scope; they put her under more sedative, but from what I can tell whenever I'm lucid, she still screams and cries and breaks down upon the table, and many nights still she has to be carted away on a gurney to her cell.

There are moments where we're able to look at each other. During those crucial first few nights, she'd look at me and beg me silently. _Help me, Help me, Help me._ I want to, every single day, that's all I ever want; she and I would escape this terrible place and make a new life for ourselves away from our parents. We'd get the police or the government or someone, anyone to fight back for us. It is a false sort of hope for either of us to be free, or to fight against the fate we were given.

So one night, after they drag us up off the tables and send us to our beds, I feel some undeniable urge to do something. Runako's cell is right next to mine, a fact that returns to me as a figure cloaked in white doctor's robes lays me down on my bed, whispers me good night, and kisses my forehead good night. Once the figure leaves, I pound my fist against the side of the wall where I hope to God Runako's lying.

I pound it once, twice, three times. I count and I keep counting until I lose track after forty-four, and I whisper. I whisper because I can't shout. I can't shout because everything on me hurts and my body won't be able to handle the strain. Yet even though I feel something clawing at my throat when I speak, I make myself talk because God help us, we have to survive this.

"Wait for me...," is all I manage to get out. "Wait for me. I'll get us out of here. Someday. Wait for me."

Runako couldn't have heard that at all. There's too much between myself and her.

But I had to say it. I had to say something. If not for her, than for me.

One day, I am going to escape this place, and I'm taking her with me. And if they catch us, then we won't let them take us alive.

* * *

A blue butterfly passes by me; a wonderful blue glow that rips away at the gore filling the cavities of my brain.

_Time never waits._

_It delivers all equally to the same end._

_You, who wish to safeguard the future, however limited it may be…_

_G_ _o forth without falter, with your heart as your guide._

I find myself in yet another black, empty void of a place. I feel the ground beneath me, my knees having collapsed to the floor from the sheer freezing temperatures. The floor is marble. Marble, and like the air, cold as ice. A door comes barreling towards me and before I know it a bright white light shines through the world.

Surrounding me are six doors, three on my right side, and three on my left. Two of the doors are, for some reason, blanketed by a white sheet, which, due to the reflection of the blue around the room, appear to be blue as well.

I suddenly realize that I am sitting in a seat that's shaped like a lyre. I look around, and I see that I am not in a room at all; I am in a massive elevator, with a blue velvet carpet spread all across the floor. I look up to see a massive golden clock tower over me, its hands moving rather quickly before slowing down and then pausing upon reaching 12:00.

I look across from me and spot a hunchbacked, white-haired, decrepit, tuxedo-wearing old man with a nose as long as my arm. His eyes are wide like saucers, bloodshot to the point where his sclerae are nearly completely red.

Next to him is a young girl, who appears to be my age; she is adorned in blue and has platinum-blonde hair, but her eyes are the most brilliant shade of golden I've ever seen, and when I take in all her features I'm beyond surprised.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room, my dear young man. My name is Igor. I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

What is this place? I say but do not say. Where am I?

"A realm between dream and reality, mind and matter," says the hunchback. "You are fast asleep in the real world as we speak. This visit of yours is merely a dream. However, you will come here of your own accord, sooner or later."

I blink at him, What do you want with me?

"I have summoned you here on matters of grave importance. You are a particularly odd individual, even in my own unique line of work. You are beyond much of anything we have ever seen before. Direct intervention is necessary to aid you in developing your unique talents. The flow of time itself bends and arches with the movement of your arms. As you are now, you experience it not. Your senses, though enhanced, are not attuned to the world in its truest state. But you are deeply connected to a vast Sea of Souls, far beyond your comprehension. It is difficult to understand, without first-hand experience. Nearly everything about you and the conditions of your abilities is an unknown. The ramifications of your mere existence are vast enough to muddle even our own senses. But know this: you are a spatial and temporal anomaly."

I'm too young and illiterate to know what an _anomaly_ is, but something about the connotations it brings makes me feel somewhat offended.

Suddenly, the little girl with platinum hair speaks, "Under certain conditions, you can play with the currents of space and time. What those conditions are, or how you can access them...we do not know. But those who have signed a contract can enter this place, and the circumstances surrounding your state of being are unique enough such that you are more than welcome here."

It's certainly a bizarre sight. But this is the first dream I've had in days that didn't seem like it was trying to kill me in my sleep. So I'm...pleased?

"You'll see us again. I am certain you have questions," the hunchback continues, "and they will be answered in time."

Then the girl, Elizabeth? She walks over to me and grabs the both of my hands, holding them in her own. I then feel something in my right hand, and the girl tells me, "Hold on to this."

It is a cobalt blue key that's as light as a feather.

Elizabeth continues, her voice a soothing calm in all this confusion, "If ever you'll need to speak to us, you may use this key to access us. We'll be free to provide whatever guidance is within our scope. Much of you is an unknown, but my Master and I are prepared to walk with you every step of the way. For your future is arduous and sure to be filled with all sorts of tragedies...yet within you, you hold the power to craft a whole new world full of possibilities."

I can't help but stare at her, at the brilliant topaz of her eyes, nor the gentle tones of her voice, nor the small smile gracing her lips. And right before the world around me turns dark and cold, she imparts one last message that I remember even in the waking hours of the next day:

"No one deserves what has happened to you. But come what may, know that you have the power to surpass even this."

.

.

.

* * *

2000

Obscene lights and sounds and smells fill the world, and at once I can no longer tell the difference between the reality I see when my eyes are open, and the innumerable horrors I see when they are closed. The scars running down from my chest to my guts bleed, the stitches coming undone. I hear a low, groaning noise that sounds like a massive steel pylon being wrenched into and around itself, and the blood's beginning to pour, it roars and cries and everything around it suffers and chokes on its own blood and dies.

When the noises end, when the chaos fades, the world comes back to me bit by bit, in intervals. In the form of snapping fingers, or questions. Beyond those, my mind drifts back to scalpels, scissors, knives, and needles. Stitches and plugs, sharp objects puncturing my nerves and forearms. In the dreams I would recall the times when they thought I was under the influence of sedatives—I would remember feeling them working on my lungs despite the drugs, I'd remember them poking around in my brain, at the clusters of nerves and cells and arteries that I _need_ to stay _alive_ —

In the visions I'd see my parents looking at me with such distant eyes, there is no light or warmth in the way they clasp my hand, there is no fear when they have me strapped to a steel table, there is no guilt when they have knives run down my sternum and peel apart the skin of my intestines. In all this they keep their eyes on me, never turning away, never looking back—did they feel like they owed it to me to never turn away from _what they were doing_ , or did they just want to make sure they weren't cutting the wrong organs out—

_Are you awake?_

Psychosomatic, they'd say time and again, _It's all psychosomatic_ , there's a deep connection between the body and the mind, between the reality we _feel_ and the reality we think we _know—_ it's a visceral, gut-wrenching, bloody feeling that claws and eats at every single one of us and it's everyone and everything all at the same time.

I always see it _in my dreams_ , some ever-changing mass of minds and music that won't ever stop singing to itself, floating and drifting in some ethereal void with a million voices and a million eyes, and a million eyes within those eyes. I feel its eyes eating away at the things I keep inside where _no one else can see_ —

No one else can see, no one else can see. No one else should see, please don't make me see Mommy I don't want to see—

Green lights, swarming the world. A yellow moon, blood bleeding out the cracks of the planet—coffins standing tall and proud, where people should be—these are not dreams but certainties of a time I do not want to bear witness to—

_Can you hear me? Please, tell me your name._

My name. My name? What could my name possibly be? Who could ask such a thing of me? Did they ever even give me a name, did they even care enough—?

Someone is looking at me; her eyes are red. Her hair is long and flowing, also blistering scarlet color, tied in spiraled pigtails. She is stern but warm. She is a child. Is she my age? Slightly older? I feel if I do not grab at her now, I'll fade back into a world filled with things I do not wish to see. I see her mouth move, and the words come after she stops.

 _My name is Mitsuru Kirijo_ , she says. And then she says once more, _Please, tell me your name._

As I reach out to her I feel my mind slip. Before I fade away I see horror plain in her eyes, and she grabs my shoulders and tries to get me to hold on—

I see my intestines hanging from hooks, my body propped up on some steel apparatus stained with the blood of other children just like me—a million eyes, a wailing chaos that will never ever stop expanding beyond itself, it has many names but at the same time has none and every single time I see it I feel its eyes eating away at the things I keep inside where _no one else can see_ —

Please don't let me see it I don't want to see it please don't let me see it I don't want to see it why do you want me to see it why must I see it ** _—why must I see_**

Hands on my shoulders bring me back from the brink, and words are coming at me from every which way—she's asking me for my name, my name, my name is, my name is—my name my name my name, _Father's name_ what was Father's name, he said it to me once and never again after—he said my name was his, but with a few characters changed around, therefore my name must be, it _must be—_

"Sakuya." My teeth chatter, my lips are chapped, my breath is rotten, and my tongue is dry. But I'm able to speak. "S-Sakuya, Sakuya Mochizuki."

I see the world for what it is. Voices are clamoring, clawing at the back of my head—I am awake.

All of a sudden, I realize where I am. The sensation of tubes in my arms and a sheet over my body is a familiar one. In a hospital bed, strapped in to prevent myself from throwing my body off the sheets—the clinical scent of the room causes my lungs to boil over, and the scars running across my chest begin to sting again—

But I focus on the red-eyed girl in front of me, and the voices don't hurt me as much as they should. She doesn't look upon me with pity or fear. She just looks as if she wants to apologize for something.

"You're in Tatsumi Memorial. You have been...asleep. For a long time."

I hate it all. I hate the tubes in my arms I hate the smell I hate the green walls—" _Why am I here_? Wh-what happened to me…?"

"You were found in Gekkoukan High. You and a girl…Runako Shiomi."

Runako. "She's alive…?"

"She's alive." Kirijo nods, eyes still fixed on me, unblinking. "But she's still asleep."

"C-can I see her…?"

"Can you move your legs?"

I try with all my might. Not even an inch. I don't even feel them.

"I'm sorry. You're not ready yet." She grabs my hand, "I'll answer any questions you have, to the best of my ability. But right now, you need to rest."

"Where are they…?" I ask her, practically vomiting the words, "My _parents_. A-are they…?"

"I told you, I'll explain everything in due time, but right now you—"

" _Tell me they're dead_ ," I look her right in the eyes. "Tell me. Please."

Takes her a few seconds. She nods slowly. She isn't lying.

"How did they die?" I ask, and she's restraining the profound sense of revulsion she feels _from me_ asking that, so I demand this time: "Tell me how they died."

"I can't do that—"

"They did _so many things_ to me—" I want to scream, I want to _scream_ so loud the whole world can hear me, but my voice is so _weak— "_ I-I…please…tell me, please. _"_

She closes her eyes, gently lifting my hand off of hers. "Please rest. I can't imagine what you have been through. But what may come in the next few days…you will know everything you want to know. But for now, let everything sink in: you are alive. You've survived beyond things many would never even believe _could_ happen. If that is of any comfort, remind yourself of that again and again. You are alive. Let that stay with you. That'll give you the strength to carry everything they've done, and break free from it."

She knows what they've done. "The things they did to us… _why_?"

She grabs my hands and sounds like she's in agony as she says, "We don't know. We didn't know about anything that occurred in that facility until it was too late. We're combing through each and every one of your files to find out why they…why this happened to you. We'll find out in due time. But in the meantime…please. Rest. It's what you need right now, more than anything else. We will take you to see her when you're ready."

At that I just nod, because what else am I to do?

Before she leaves, she gives me an earnest, sad look in her eyes. One that promises me the whole world and maybe some sense of closure. But the minute she walks out the room my eyes start to burn, my lungs crumple into themselves, and my stitches come apart at the seams again—

I clutch my head and whimper and whisper and seethe, telling myself _My name is Sakuya Mochizuki_ over and over again, because if nothing else, if I end up dying feeling this kind of pain and helplessness, the one thing I would at least want to remember before I pass on is my own name.

My name is Sakuya Mochizuki. My name is Sakuya Mochizuki. I am here. I am alive. Let me stay that way forever, if only out of spite.

* * *

A few more days pass, with moments of true peace and quiet few and far between. Everything on me aches day in and day out, and so I down painkillers every few hours—somehow the headaches persist even through the drugs. When the pain gets too much I just force myself to sleep and hope I stay asleep.

I see my parents every so often. When they're not vivisecting me in my dreams, I see flashes of them in the corners of my room, or at the windows, or at the door. When I face them they disappear, but I feel their eyes on me every second of every minute of every day. Much of the time, I end up fading away and I see the million-eyed creature screaming and singing from beyond the veil.

No one special comes in. Just doctors. In and out and in and out. Taking blood pressure tests and checking my temperature. Making me drink gallons of water and loads of vegetables.

The pain always starts hours before twelve. When it hits, it flares up like a creature inside my guts tearing at my organs. It only fades the minute the Dark Hour ends. Medication helps most of the time, but they tell me not to rely on it too much; lest I get addicted, or overdose on accident at some point. My organs have become even more susceptible to failure than the average person.

When midnight arrives and I look out the window to my left, I see that the skies are a corrupted emerald green. The moon is the same shade of yellow as a rotted tooth, and the smell of blood fills my nostrils. The lights in the city are dead and black, as black as the coffins dotting the city streets—this is not a delusion. This is not a dream. This is all too real to be a dream, too real to be a construction of my mind or my memories.

Within all this time all sorts of things become apparent to me. Like how my arms seem to have grown substantially since last I remember them. How my legs, though skinny to the bone, are longer than they're supposed to be. How my scratchy voice cracks and creaks and shows signs of deepening.

I don't know what year it was when they brought me upon the operating table. But I know I was eight. Now, I'm not so sure.

Mitsuru Kirijo said that I'd been asleep for a long time.

And though I try to work up the courage to ask her what _year_ it is when she visits me on the seventh day of my stay, I just shudder and suppress that question.

She starts the conversation by asking me how I'm doing. Things go from there.

Eventually I get _some_ courage, "How did you and your people find us? Me and Runako?"

"My grandfather...Koetsu Kirijo," she responds. "He was the man who led the experiments on you and everyone else in that facility. Something had gone wrong, and by the time my father's people arrived on the scene, we found you and Shiomi in the rubble."

My eyes widen at the sound of that, "You and your father _knew_ about what they were doing to us?"

She faces me clearly, "My father knew experiments were being conducted at that facility. He didn't know it involved experimentation upon children. I didn't know of any of this; my father had tried to keep it secret from me, to protect me. But I forced my way in, you could say."

...she isn't lying. How can I tell that she isn't lying?

"You don't have to believe me if you don't want to."

"I believe you," I tell her. "I don't know how...but I believe you." Then blurs of faces pass me by. "There were...more of us, besides myself and Runako," I grab my head. "I can't remember any of their names, but I know they were there..."

She closes her eyes, leaning against my hospital bed, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Everything my grandfather did...even I don't know the reasoning behind what he had tried to do. They're trying to keep certain details from me. They tell me I'll learn over time. But I doubt they'd be so keen on letting me know, even then."

"So you still don't know why they...?"

She purses her lips, looking away from me now. "No."

I take in a deep breath. "Where's Runako now? Is she awake?"

"Runako Shiomi...is currently in a floor above you. My father hired the best doctors and nurses to keep her alive. She's unresponsive to external stimuli."

Big words, "Meaning?"

"When she wakes up, she doesn't react to anything around her. It's like we're not even there."

Damn it. Damn it all. "Of course..."

"Considering the state we found her in...it's a miracle that she's still holding on to life."

" _That_ counts as a miracle to you?"

She nods, "Yes. We must take what we can get."

I grip the hem of my bed sheets. Perhaps I can risk looking insane in front of her. "Every night, the sky turns green. The moon turns yellow. I smell blood. People on the streets become coffins. Am I seeing things or is it all real?"

She faces me and doesn't turn away again. "It began the night we found you. From what I've gathered, it...it has something to do with the experiments they performed on you."

I shudder at being reminded of everything they did to us, so I plead, "Please. Let me see Runako soon. I-I just want to see her."

"You need to rest, still. You can't walk yet."

"She's my friend. Please."

She holds my hands tight. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll ask my father and the nurses and the doctors to let you see her as soon as possible...but that's about all I can do."

"She's the only one I have left."

She looks at me sadly. "I know."

* * *

Few more days pass.

Whenever a cold breeze passes over, or when I somehow find it in myself to sleep for longer than four hours, the nightmares come. There are many who experience nightmares so terrifying that they end up springing awake in their bedsheets when it gets too much, but whenever the nightmares come for me my body remains locked in place, and my eyes fail to open when I _need_ them too.

My ribcage always tightens itself into my lungs just before the visions hit; some nights they're torrential, never-ending, nonsensical, but nevertheless terrifying. Endless streams of black and white, chromatic impossibilities turning into masses of distortion, creatures of delirium coming to life and tearing themselves apart at the seams.

Some nights the creatures have claws, have structure, and they speak and scream and rage; some nights they number like grains of sand along a beach, some nights they number the stars in all the known universe.

The most recurring dream is of a vile, untameable, nuclear chaos blazing and flailing uncontrollably across a wide expanse. Its body is the darkness of space itself, its eyes are stars and its boils are planets. Though there cannot be a single thing upon it even remotely resembling a face, one minute I'd recognize it's appearance as something or someone completely familiar, and the next it'd be no one at all. Its only constant throughout its ever-shifting visage is its gleaming yellow pupils; the eyes would shift from hardened to soft to neutral in no particular order and without warning, but the pupils would always remain their bright yellow.

The words it speaks are the same every time; even though I've dreamt this what feels like an innumerable amount of times, I can never memorize any of its words, much less understand them. Yet it's repeated them so many times it has crafted a rhythm of sorts in my head. Like a song. All it would do is _sing_ unintelligibly, its unblinking eyes glowing brighter by the second.

And then I would wake up the next morning and forget all the words, claws gnashing away at the back of my mind.

But this time, this time things change.

Many of the millions of eyes roll back into themselves, collapsing into masses of darkness. The other stars fall, collapsing unto the planets and giving birth to untold abominations. And then there are screams.

I see people throwing themselves into the indescribable masses of flesh and teeth and claws and begging to be more, begging to be taken, begging to be free. Names I don't understand and words I've never heard seep into my ears, and I feel my brain crumple into itself for every single syllable I hear.

Embers falling from the skies, buildings collapsing within seconds, the indescribable forming out of mindless voids, and the world seeing its true face for the very first time in perhaps decades. Within seconds I'm holding hearts and lungs and guts and things I never knew the human body even had.I'm covered in the blood and insides of millions and within seconds the world descends into madness. Men eating their wives and children; animals torn to shreds for scraps and food; innocents burned alive for reasons they'll never understand. Fires of purification blasted upon country after country, until the last shreds of us are collapsing in desert wastes.

The blood has risen up to my knees. Corpses torn and shredded at my feet. Millions of dead men, women and children staring up with blank white eyes at a starless sky, their gazes empty and their bodies coated in sheets of a deep, pure red. The expanse of bodies stretches unto the horizon and by the end of it all I hear not a single sound.

The monsters and the men are dead and gone and all that is left is a vacuum of darkness to swallow myself and the rest of us whole.

The silence is broken by a voice that must be mine.

"What is life, but the beginning of death?"

I turn, and see a boy dressed in striped pyjamas.

His hair is short, messy, and black. His eyes are blue and his skin is pale and he appears to be my age. Though he too is steeped in the blood and the corpses, there's not a single stain of red upon his skin or his clothes.

"What is death, but the end of life?"

And the closer he approaches me, the more I see what kind of beast he must truly be. For his eyes turn whiter, his skin grows more and more bleached, and for every step he takes he brings And though my heart's leapt into my throat, though I want to scream at my legs to get up and start running, I remain still and silent and like stone and I'm sure to be dead within seconds.

"The end begins tonight, and its messengers will hound you for every night to come."

But by the time he's reached me he's holding my blood-soaked head to his chest.

"There is power and strength in standing against it, girding yourself against the inevitable. But time is something no one can escape. It delivers us all to the same end. Plug up your ears, cover your eyes, pray and plead to all the gods with all your might. The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, his days were numbered. Dark falls all the same."

Slowly, carefully, I lift my head up to face him.

Black pours down his emptied eyesockets, as he gives me a smile that one could almost consider loving.

"Ah, but even in this darkest of nights...the moonlight shines through."

* * *

The building shudders and groans like it's been hit by a wrecking ball, and I'm jolted awake as the hospital trembles.

I breathe heavily, lurching forward and sitting up in my bed; out the window the world's turned green. A full moon hangs in the night sky, so deep a shade of yellow it's almost golden.

It is when I realize that the moon is hanging beneath the clouds that the building shakes again.

I hear the sound of concrete being sundered, glass shattering, steel being bent and wrenched apart. It is happening below me, perhaps at ground floor, but though everything I have and everything I am is pleading with me to get out of bed I'm stuck and I'm scared and I'm frozen like a deer in headlights, I'm breathing like I'm trying to drag the entire atmosphere into my lungs, my heart's battering itself against my ribcage over and over and _over again-_

do you see?

Visions start pouring again and within seconds I'm overwhelmed; I clutch my skull as I realize once more the stars have eyes and they're gazing down upon me, singing and screaming and laughing as doctors open my guts and make me see silhouettes of inconceivable creatures that cannot and should not and must not ever exist _why why must I see I can't see I don't want to see_

are you scared or are you blind?  
are you made of stone or flesh?

The voice sounds like _**mine**_ but I see none else here, my mouth isn't moving and I _know_ I can't just be speaking to myself, but I am alone, alone and alone forever and ever more, bleeding out from my eyes and hoping everything would end-

My vision's blurred again but I see a flash of red storm into my room and I am too numb to even let terror register into my nerves. There are hands on my arms and the whole world's so hazy I can't recognize a single detail. Everything's an outline, like a rough sketch that's been forgotten to time and space and reality and there is no motion, only still images I can't fathom.

_Mo Chi Zu Ki_

I hear again and again, _Mo Chi Zu Ki_.

The voice is feminine and I recognize it from another place another time another world entirely and I realize that if I were to let myself fade now, I don't think I'd ever be able to come back again.

I'm being shaken and stirred and the blurs fade in seconds, and I see a teary-eyed girl with red hair. She would visit me often these days, but the poise and the certainty and the elegance has given way to an unbridled terror plain in her eyes.

"Mochizuki," she breathes, seeing I've got life in my eyes again. "We have to get you out of here."

It takes everything in me to simply ask " _What's happening_...?!"

"There's no time," she grunts. "We're lucky to have gotten here just in time...!"

"What about Runako-!?"

A voice rings in my head; feminine and terrified and urgent, _~ Mitsuru! Mochizuki! Can you both hear me!? ~_

"I-I hear you!" she cries out. "What's happening!?"

_~ It's crawling up the side of the building! And all exits from the ground floor are blocked! ~_

"Blocked!? How!?"

_~ It can split itself up! You have to get yourself, Mochizuki, and Shiomi out of there right now! They're all gaining on the three of you! ~_

"Are there any up on the roof!?" she cries out.

_~ No! It - it might just be our only option...! ~_

"Damn it," Mitsuru grunts. "We'll have to get up on the roof. Take the fight to them up there."

"Runako _first_ ," I grab her forearm, "I won't leave her alone again."

She nods at me, "I had no intention of leaving her, either!"

I scramble out of bed, my feet landing heel-first into the cold hard hospital floor - and then my knees, then my face.

"S-Sakuya...!"

Agony screeches across my frame, bolts of lighting blaring through every nerve and artery and neuron as I suppress what would otherwise be a scream so loud you'd hear it from the other side of the city.

Mitsuru hoists my arm up over her shoulders as I cough up blood and sweat floods down my back, "A-are you...!?" I say something she and I can't even hear, my voice murmuring when it should be screaming and she cries, "Wh-what!?"

" _Leave me here,_ " I shout at her, the pain so unbearable I feel tears at the edges of my eyes. "Leave me here. I'm of no use to you. You have to get to her _now...!_ "

"We're going _together_!" she shouts back. "Nobody here has to die!"

 _~ Mitsuru, they've reached your floor, you both have got to get to Shiomi_ now _! The big one's coming! ~_

And she drags me with her as I do my best to stand on legs that can't walk.

The building shakes once more, and more things get shattered and more stones crumble and a thrashing sound occurs just outside of my room.

Then we hear the bellow of a beast. A floundering whale, gasping for life. Screaming at decibels impossible for men to achieve.

are you frightened?

All sound deafens, a bitter ringing noise blaring through my eardrums. Mitsuru's voice is just reverberations, meaningless and nonsensical.

do you dare wipe away the horizon?

I turn around as the voice grows louder and louder. To the window of my room.

do you dare drink up the sea?

The moon is gazing upon the world as the green emerald sky grows deeper and darker. Swelled to gargantuan proportions it flares its golden rays, a sun unto itself.

what is life, but the beginning of death?  
death, but the end of life?

The sky is a deep, emerald green, filled with faces glaring down upon the planet; red streaks of rain pour down upon the world, the clouds spiralling endlessly into themselves. The endless singing, the music of an orchestra of dark, it all floods into my ears at once, beautiful and maddening and ferocious all the same.

A giant black hand places itself upon the glass of my window. I hear voices behind me screaming, pleading, begging for me to stop. Someone speaking to me in my head, trying to pull me away. I wonder why they plead, why they scream, why they cry at me so.

I realize far too late that it is because I am reaching out at the black hand.

The hand reaches out to me.

 _KRRSHHH_ is the sound the glass makes when the hand breaks through, and I and Mitsuru manage to get ourselves far back enough such that it cannot reach. As it paws around the room the concrete breaks and the frame of the wall comes apart, it lands its hands once upon my hospital bed and it folds inward into itself, embedding itself into the stone floor-

And Mitsuru pulls me aside, making me get behind her.

Something in her eyes hardens as she grabs a steel silver _thing at her side_ , something dark and black and monstrous is tearing apart my hospital room and it's coming for us, gaining on us, I hear the bellowing sound once again as my ears deafen; it is wearing a blue mask and its arms are innumerable and the voice speaks to me again as Mitsuru puts _a gun to her head-_

behold, the terror and the majesty.

" _Penthesilea_!"

_BANG!_

Brilliant blue.

Shattered glass flies out of her skull, circling around her form.

The creature that emerges out of her head is taller than either of us. Bathed in an almost holy blue light. She is an armored queen; dressed in blue garments, a black steel corset clamped over her torso. Armed with two silver blades, each one as large as a man's arm. She bears a knight's helm upon her head, a small golden crown atop the helm itself; she is beautiful and cold and everything that Mitsuru was, is, and ever will be. The sight of her is enough to let all the pain in my nerves sink away.

And it plunges its blades down upon the giant black hand, dark ichor escaping as the hand pulls back, as the beast makes a bellow, and black blood spreads all over the room, the armored queen pins the hand down as she gets covered in gore and Mitsuru's voice reaches me now as she screams "Let's go! Now's our chance!"

And I take her hand.

We run as the beast screams, bellowing so loudly I can no longer think straight.

* * *

Somehow I summon just enough strength to get up to the floor above us.

Mitsuru bashes her way into the second room on our right.

Sleeping. Quiet, unmoved. Tubes and plugs of all kinds in her arms, a plastic mask cupping her nose and mouth. Her face is all bandaged up, concealing her auburn locks and scarlet eyes. The fact that the heart monitor next to her is still beeping is the only thing indicating she's still alive.

They would operate on us on two separate tables, side by side. I would look into her eyes, and she into mine. There would be blood everywhere on the table and our eyes would constantly glaze over from sedatives. The doctors and surgeons operating on us were little more than faint blurs melding into the rest of the world.

But she was clear. Clearer than day. The fear and the emptiness in her dull, empty eyes; you just don't forget anything like that. I don't know if she saw me, as in actually saw _me_ and not just another blurry object. But if my presence was of any comfort to her, I hope she did.

I rip and tear out every IV and tube stuck in Runako's arms.

"Wait, wait _wait Mochizuki-!"_

"We can't stay here," I breathe, throwing Runako's blanket off her. "They're catching up quickly. If we're gonna get to the roof, we have to go _now_."

Blood pours down her arms from where I'd ripped out the tubes. If the monsters don't kill her, she'll die from blood loss. Best-case scenario is she survives the night. Worst case scenario is if she survives the night and wakes up.

Mitsuru wants to protest because a little girl's arms are pouring out copious amounts of blood, but she decides against it because now even she can hear the cooing and the crying and the laughing, and the bellows of a whale as the whole hospital continues trembling.

I put my right arm under Runako's legs and put my left under her shoulders. I'm skinny and my body hurts and everything's working against me yet again. I struggle and beg my body to work if only until I can carry this girl and get her to the roof, blood's coming out my eyes and my wounds as I scream and burn in horror -

Mitsuru places a firm hand on my shoulder. "You can't."

And I say nothing. But I step aside. Because she's right.

She grabs Runako, carries her in a bridal fashion, and cries, "Let's go!"

And I follow her out into the hall.

 _~ Penthesilea can only hold it for so long, you need to_ — _! ~_

The voice fades, like static.

"A-Amada-san!?" she cries.

— _losing_ — _must not_ — _RUN!_ —

"Damn it!" she cries.

Mitsuru and I run across the halls, Runako in her arms, and make our way up the stairs. For every step I take to try and keep up, the more my body wants to break down.

The roof is after another three floors. The first of those three, I feel terrified but my body's relatively stable. The instant my foot lands on the second floor, I feel my neck go numb, my guts go cold, my legs begin to shake. Halfway through the hallway of the second floor, I collapse.

She keeps calling me, trying to get me to keep up and _God help us_ I'm doing my best. But it's difficult to run when most of your blood vessels are ready to burst, when you keep blacking out every few seconds, when most of your organs can't decide whether or not they wanna function-

I fall again when I reach the stair landing leading up to the penultimate floor.

When my senses come back to me I vomit out blood and I hear Mitsuru practically crying out my name, " _Sakuya!"_

Through the darkness of these hospital halls I see tears at the edges of her eyes. Mitsuru's voice is frantic and loud but for the life of me I can't even understand what she's saying. And she can't just help me up, she can't just let go of Runako and shake me to my senses, the monsters are coming, they're coming and they'll get us and they'll kill us.

Leave me, I try begging her, grabbing the front of her blouse with hands coated in red. Please, leave me here, to die.

It is only after I've said these words do I realize I've been completely unintelligible to her.

So I rise, and though the monster rampages behind us, though I can hear my hospital room down below being thrashed to pieces, and though I'm certain we'll both be dead if she keeps this up, she walks at a slow pace just so I can keep up with her.

I ask her something through a hoarse voice drowned in my own blood.

All she can cry in response is "What!?"

" _I can run,_ " If anyone else were pushing as hard as I am to be heard, they'd be yelling. Even now, my voice is lower than a whisper. "I'll keep up as best I can. Promise me you'll leave me, if I fall again."

"I-I can't just _leave you-!"_

"You _have to_ ," I grunt, "You need to use your powers to protect us, you can't just-"

"You can't put too much stress on yourself, you'll die!"

I shout at her, "What do you want me to do, either way _we're already dead_ -"

And then she exclaims, " _I was experimented on, too_!"

I can't believe my ears. "What...?"

But I can't respond further before I cough up more and more blood. I try pushing myself up and off but my arms are weak and my legs are virtually nonexistent. Tears well up in my eyes because the pain's just gone full circle and now my whole body feels numb; vibrations crawl up my arms and my legs - and the center of my chest feels cold, growing colder and colder by the second.

Blood drips down from my mouth and my eyes and my ears, the act of merely lifting up my head to see the top of the staircase enough to send bolts of white-hot fire cascading down from my neck to my spine -

I see the top of the staircase. Four more steps ahead, but it might as well be four light years. She tries to help me up but to no avail.

Pain all over. Blood dripping from every orifice. Body growing inexorably cold. Soon I'll break and I'll die and the monsters'll feast on mine and Runako's corpses and Mitsuru will hate herself for the rest of her days.

And Mitsuru and I turn, at the sound of mewling.

It sounds like sludge, like a ball of dung coated in oil, rolling forward. An oozing thing slinks up from the darkness and makes a baby's cries.

For a head it has a five-fingered hand, human molars lining its fingers; in the center of the palm lies a bright blue mask. The mask is emotionless and bears a straight line for a mouth, two large empty eyeholes, and a pointed nose. A Roman numeral is carved into the forehead: II.

Mitsuru has the silver gun in her hands but she sees that _thing_ wriggling itself up to me and the revulsion overrides any semblance of urgency.

It has the body of a newborn baby, squeezing out liquids and pus from various pustules and boils coated all over its small, plump frame. It is coated in an ashen black, as though it had been immolated. Crawling towards us, arms and legs themselves sprouting hands at their ends.

And it laughs, it laughs and giggles and coos as a child would as it cups my face with its frontal arms, and I gaze into the eyeholes of its blue mask and its just nothingness, endless darkness and emptiness and nothingness, and it laughs more and more as I gaze deeper into the darkness of its eyes, and then the fingers attached to its head spread out like the rays of a sun -

My body acts before my brain can register any of this.

The creature cries because I'm smashing it against the wall, using its leg as a way to club it against concrete. It cries and cries so loudly I keep smashing it and _smashing it_ , again and again, and I lose count after eight. It cries like a baby cries and I need it to stop because it has to stop because the monsters will keep coming for us for me for Mitsuru for Runako-

But it isn't for any of us, it isn't for any of us at all, perhaps its just for me because I hate all of these questions I have in my head, I hate the pain I feel running through my half-corpse, I hate my parents and I hate these creatures for coming for me, for coming for Mitsuru and Runako and maybe, just maybe, I'm doing this because for once I want to feel good about myself and

and

and

and.

By the time I let myself think again, I'm covered in black blood, breathing heavily and standing on my own two feet. I've twisted its leg off like a drumstick by the time I realize the pain has disappeared entirely, in its place nothing but euphoria.

I put a hand to my mouth to keep the blood in. I hear not the sound of my feet hitting the floor, nor do I hear the woman's voice calling or pleading to me. But I hear more children cry. I hear a whale bellowing. I hear what will be mine and Runako's death, if I do nothing.

When I run, jolts of pain run up my legs yet again. And though the blood continues to pour, though my head feels like it'll crack open like an egg, though everything in me still is breaking apart by the second, I can't stop because the monsters will _keep on coming-_

And I see them, I see more of those little beasts. They are a slow, rising flood, crawling their way up the stairs and mewling and laughing, the boils over their ashen corpses secrete pus and mucus and all sorts of unutterable things, sprawling over the floors, their eyeless masks turn up to see me-

But first they turn to their mashed up baby brother and they use the teeth they have on the fingers they have for a face.

Chewing, sloppy, crunching; dozens swarm the corpse and feast, the feast is slow and they laugh as they eat and they get fuller and fuller, the fuller they get the more their boils push out their unmentionable liquids, liquids which are black and yellow and red and all manner of colors that should not be coming from child's bodies-

"Penthesilea!"

I turn overhead, and a knightess swoops downward, slashing away at the ashen infants and causing ichor to fly across the world.

She grabs Runako and hoists her small body over her shoulder, pulling me by my arm.

* * *

By the time we make it to the roof, I'm far too tired to even move, and the pain blasts into my nerves once more. I slump against the wall, and Mitsuru lays Runako next to me at my behest. I embrace her; if I can't move, I can at the very least shield the girl with my body.

The moon is beneath the clouds. Glowing yellow, against the darkness of the green clouds.

do you dare wipe away the horizon?  
do you dare drink up the sea?

And Mitsuru cries, "Amada-san! Can you hear us!?"

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

"She can't contact us, how can she not contact us, this isn't Tartarus, how is this even...!?"

could you gaze upon an abyss, and embrace it as your own?

And then the building shakes again.

Windows shattering.

I feel a cold hand grip my spine, and I hold Runako tighter.

It is climbing up the walls. Pounding, closer, closer, ever closer. Rising up from the side of the building.

A dark, ashen hand, as large as the one that had smashed apart my hospital room.

Carrying a blue mask as large as a man's body, with the symbol II. It is at this point the word _Magician_ rings in my ears, though I do not know why. Its whole body slinks upon the roof, though "body" is something of a relative term.

Mitsuru stands tall, stands to defend us but her knees are shaking. Her hands are trembling. Just keeping herself upright is _killing her_ but she promised to defend us, she wants to _atone_ for some godforsaken reason and I try to tell her to stop but my voice won't come out, I try to reach out to her but my arms won't move, I try to rise up but my legs _actually can't move now_ —

And the beast lunges.

She can't even put the gun to her head before she's thrown aside.

Almost falls off the roof, but instead her body skids across the concrete and hits the railing.

Illuminated by the moonlight, I see it for what it truly is.

A mass of arms, undulating and bending into each other, each bearing two elbows and ten fingers. There is no joining of the limbs, no main body from which all the arms emerge. Each arm swings its blade around like a windmill. Though all its million fingers bear no nails, the fingers themselves give off the impression of having been sharpened to a point. The mass is ashen black, much like the children that had pursued us up to this floor, though it is not covered in boils; rather, keloid scars and burnt lesions coat its ashen frame.

From the keloid scars it leaks a viscous red liquid as it nears us, and as it nears us it gives off the smell of burnt meat, burnt flesh, I've smelt this flesh before, somewhere in a dark cell I smelt it, somewhere in the caverns where they poked us and prodded us and cut open our insides, it uses its massive scarred hands to grip both myself and Runako and I'm too weak and scared and terrified to move a muscle—

And a boy in pajamas asks me, "Go on. Can't you do it?"

* * *

I see a million corpses. Beneath my feet.

Runako, sleeping soundly in my arms. Clean, unmarred by blood. She has never before looked so peaceful.

The screaming, the singing, it rings so loudly and so clearly now.

And I remember what our parents had done to us.

I remember all the blood, the gore, the madness they had put us through.

I remember it all.

But at the end, in all the madness, she and I remain together. And I will never let that happen to her again.

Before I know it I'm crying. Red cascades down my cheeks and a fire burns in my eyes.

The boy in striped pyjamas looks at me, and smiles. "Can you do it?"

And I let out a scream so loud that it can be heard at the edge of the universe.

* * *

rise, endure, struggle, contend.  
**let us make a pact.**

The creature screams again and is thrown back, leaping away from us.

I keep Runako firmly in my arms as I stare the beast down with bleeding eyes.

Black fire surrounds us, coating my arms and my body but I feel nothing but _good_. All the pain, all the fear, all the terror and the hurt and the fury all disappears; there is a burning, smoldering feeling rising up in the void I've got for a chest and for the first time since I've been at this hospital, for the first time in what feels like my entire life, I let out a smile.

The fires rise from upwards and outwards, emanating out of me like light from the moon, and a creature forms out of the flames.

A pale horse storms out of the fire, one that bears bright blue eyes and is the size of a car; its mane and tail are dark as the night sky, and flare about as the flames do. Its rider is a skeleton, dressed in garb so black that all surrounding light merely is absorbed, not reflected. In its arms it carries a scythe that's as large as three men and with it he shall separate the wheat from the chaff at the end of the world.

Coated in the dark flames, he bears the name Death and surely to follow him is Hell itself.

**thou art I. I am thou.**

**from the sea of thy soul, I cometh.**

**I am Pale Rider,** **Harbinger of the Apocalypse.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> The initial plan for this fic was to be a remake of a previous story that I've come to detest; my very first P3 novelization, the one I didn't even complete. Supposed to be an Orpheus-Eurydice type tale of wonder and sorrow and tragedy.
> 
> But many things have happened since then. I've become more attuned to my religious side, for one thing. And because of people like Jordan Peterson and Carl Jung and Max Derrat, I became aware of the book AION.
> 
> Was given a fantastic run down of its core principles and ideas. Inspired to rewrite this story yet again, and this time make the Christ/religious imagery a central motif of the whole story. Namely in how Carl Jung frames Christ as the idealized "self," of the West, and how the Antichrist is essentially the dichotomous Shadow. You can see how this sounds very familiar, to anyone who's played the Persona series.
> 
> Plus I'm a super huge nut for the Book of Revelation, so you'll probably see a whole lot more of apocalyptic imagery here.
> 
> Now, I wanted to make our protagonists stand out a little differently, so I've given them very different names.
> 
> Runako Shiomi is our FeMC; Runako is the first name given to the FeMC by Famitsu, when promoting Persona 3 Portable. Shiomi is taken from the surname of the MCs from the Persona 3 stage play.
> 
> Sakuya Mochizuki is the name used for the character commonly known as Minato Arisato/Makoto Yuuki. Took the first name from the stage play, and I'm having the surname Mochizuki have some more slight significance to our MC. Wanted to name him differently because, well, I'm using Makoto/Minato for other fics and I wanted to go against the tide a bit.
> 
> And Sakuya's starter is not Orpheus this time!
> 
> You guys should seriously read the Book of Revelation. That's the Bible unfiltered, right there.


	2. I Saw a Dead Man Win a Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"But I have dreamed a dreary dream.  
>  _ _Beyond the Isle of Skye,_  
>  _I saw a dead man win a fight,  
>  _ _And I think that man was I."_
> 
> \- Excerpt from _The_ _Battle of Otterburn_ , unknown

Dumbstruck the Magician stands, in an almost human gesture; it dares not tread forward, for it gazes upon a creature far greater than it ever could even hope to be.

A storm burns through my veins, my bones, my muscles and arteries-it blasts outward from the spine to everywhere else like a pulse of agony. The pain is now more than it has ever been before but it's never felt _so good, so right, so goddamned sweet._

I let out a smile and a laugh as blood pours out my eyes and my tongue and my ears and the higher my voice rises the higher the Pale Rider raises his scythe. Through an eyeless skull the Rider glares down the multi-armed beast like a lion to a lamb, and the scythe comes down in a motion so quick not even I could see.

The monster was not in range of the blade. Not even a shallow cut lay upon its mottled frame.

And it inches forward because it knows, it knows it knows it _knows_ that it has to get to _me_ -

A spark bursts from one of its arms and then another and another, like fireworks popping and crackling until within mere seconds the whole beast is aflame.

An all-consuming, all-destroying holy fire, ordained by whatever entity had given the Pale Rider his authority. The creature burns and flounders and writhes and screams, it bellows such horrified cries and yes. Oh yes they sound terrible, they sound so vulgar, so inhuman and so enraged; again like a whale, a dying wretched whale suffocating from plastic in its throat and guts-

But as the roars grow ever louder, as the bellows and the screams ring in my ears, I begin hearing other things in the creature's cries; for an instant, a brief instant, I hear the bawl of an infant, hollering for its mother.

Through the flames its eyeless mask remains locked on me. Though its body is burning and falling to pieces it faces me; not the Rider, not Mitsuru, not even Runako - _me_. The child's cries soon give way to an unyielding screech, like steel scraping against steel, and it charges on while it burns and as it burns the Rider raises its scythe again and as it burns it screams it looks me in the eyes and calls to me my name-

The creature - the multi-armed thing that a voice in my head keeps telling me is a _Magician_ \- even though it's literally burning alive, burning to pieces it comes at me and doesn't let anything stand in its way. The Pale Rider raises his blade again but in seconds the burning mass of arms wraps themselves around him and the horse-

I feel like a spear's run through my brain and that my body's collapsing in on itself. My organs are being crushed and my bones splintered but nothing's actually happening to _me_ -the Pale Rider's being crushed and mangled and I'm feeling all of it, feeling all of it everywhere on me. I'm screaming and crying and I'm thrashing about in pain, I'm keeled over and shredded up and I can't do a single goddamned thing about it because I can't do a single goddamned thing about _anything in my life-_

And I realize too late that I've let go of Runako.

There is a _crunching_ noise. You'd only be able to hear it from up close.

* * *

An aria. An ascending elevator. A golden clock hanging overhead.

I have been here before.

"It's so nice to see you again."

I recall all of this; this hunchbacked creature standing before me, the little golden-eyed girl at his side.

"You became unconscious after awakening to your power. And my...what a tremendous power it is. I see that it was the Pale Rider that heeded your calling. I suppose it is fitting; you bear authority over life and death itself. However limited that authority might be..."

Whatever do you mean by that?

"So you recall nothing from the battle?"

The battle is but a hazy dream now; not even an image of it, faint nor clear, crosses my mind.

"Your memories are adrift...indeed, your victory came at a truly unique cost. But no matter. You defeated the creature, defended those around you, and returned to the land of the living. All shall be made clear soon enough."

The girl, _Elizabeth_ , speaks up, "Pale Rider is a _Persona_. A manifestation of your psyche. A being, borne of humanity's inner consciousness - given life by your call."

Words I can half-understand; there is so much meaning here I fail to grasp, but I think I understand the barest essentials.

Igor continues where she left off, "Think of it as a mask that protects you as you brave many hardships. An aspect of your being which manifests into this world upon your command. The Pale Rider is an unconscionably powerful being; your summoning of him speaks wonders of your mental fortitude. It must have seen great potential in you, hence why it answered your call. Yet for all the benefits you have gained from your abilities, there are surely drawbacks to be had..."

Drawbacks? Such as?

Elizabeth replies, "You bear a hole in your very self that has the potential to swallow entire worlds, if left untempered. Grasp it, use it to the best of your ability. But never indulge yourself in its power. If you take up arms against the cruel hand dealt upon you, know that you shall not face your future alone. Remember that."

And she walks up to me again, imparting a small, sweet smile as she grasps my hands. "Time marches on in your world. The next time we meet, you will come here of your own accord. By then you'll have remembered everything. But until then... farewell."

* * *

I feel my heart first and foremost.

It does not pound or hammer away against my chest. It is not throbbing or thrashing violently. It is slow and steady, almost rhythmic to my breaths.

It's then that I awaken facing a pale ceiling, in a soft bed with cool sheets.

Wooden floorboards; shining, varnished. Curtains with floral patterns. Double casement windows, unlike the sliding windows of the hospital. Beige wallpaper. A small couch against the wall opposite the bed. No clinical smell, little to no airconditioning. There's a heart monitor, an IV in my left arm, and a bucket of water at the foot of the bed, but otherwise there's little to nothing that even resembles a hospital in this place.

I try sitting up but a wrenching feeling in my stomach keeps me lying down. Whatever fresh new wounds I've gained hardly register. The pain, imparted unto me by my parents, is still there, but it's duller now; almost not worth mentioning. But my head and neck burn feverishly, and my stomach growls and I hope for something that isn't goddamned hospital food.

I cough and the strain causes my chest to nearly crumple as I lean my head into sweaty pillows. My right hand trembles and my legs are numb below the knee. Though I can see my left hand, I can't _feel_ it. Not numb; almost as though it's unattached. Like it isn't there at all, even if I can see plain as day that it is.

I feel my brain shudder as I recall what happened what had felt like just last night.

Raging, endless flame. The cries of an indescribable beast. Unending madnesses. Holding Runako in my arms.

I breathe deeply and raise my right hand to my face. I close my eyes and hope and pray and scream inside of myself. Arrayed on all sides are creatures with a million eyes, each peering from the darkness. Though it is day and I know it is day because the sun is shining through the windows to my left, I still see myself trapped in a world without light, gazed upon by a singing, undulating, dark god.

The wooden door opens, and I whirl around to see —

A redheaded girl my age, accompanied by a nurse carrying a tray of food. The girl has her left leg in a cast and she's using crutches. Our eyes meet and she stops dead in her tracks.

The nurse places the tray on the couch and rushes to me, patting at my shoulders and asking me questions I answer half-heartedly. Within seconds she's tapping at her cellphone and says something about calling a _Mr. Kirijo,_ because _he'd want to hear about this_.

All the while the redheaded girl approaches me. Slowly, steadily. She's helped by her nurse because she's clearly not used to crutches.

The nurse pulls up a stool for her and the girl doesn't take it. She just keeps her eyes on me. Though she tries carrying herself still and stoic, like an adult, she's unable to quell the warmth in her eyes nor the shakiness of her breath.

I think of a great many things I could say at this moment. But beyond all else I recall us on that roof, that burning and horrifying carcass, and how at the end of all things we'd survived. So I leave behind thoughts of Runako, the monsters, my parents. I let a small smile emerge and I just tell her, "I'm so glad you're okay," in a voice that can rise no higher than a husky whisper.

Tears stream down her eyes as she throws the crutches down and embraces me on the bed. We both cry our eyes out, acting our age for the first time in what feels like years.

* * *

The doctors take their tests and their examinations. Checking my fever and my temperature and whatever scars I bear under the bandages. Little to no new ones; just a large gash on my stomach that I don't quite recall being there before the fight.

Once they're done Mitsuru talks to me. Tells me I've been asleep for four whole days.

After the incident at the hospital, Mitsuru arranged for myself and Runako to stay in guest rooms at her mansion.

Those creatures, which she called _Shadows_ , would attack anyone within the 25th hour, the _Dark Hour_ , who wasn't in a coffin.

We were lucky that apparently no one from Tatsumi Memorial perished, despite all the destruction I'm certain had taken place. But we couldn't risk another attack. Mitsuru had decided that, until I and Runako would awaken, we'd stay with her. Her, and others like her.

Others who can summon "Personas...?"

"That's what you and I possess," she said. "It's what we summoned four nights ago, to destroy that Shadow. We're fortunate no others have come for us since then..."

"What happened to your leg...?"

"After you killed the Shadow, parts of its body split and very nearly killed you. Plus, there was still a significant number of them still roaming the hospital. This broken leg," she gestures, "is the result of me putting them down."

I breathe. "I'm glad you're okay. Although, you know, I...don't actually remember much from that fight."

"What _do_ you remember?"

It takes a moment for me to answer.

"A creature with many arms. A blue mask. Runako, sound asleep. A skeleton wielding a scythe, riding upon a horse."

"You remember enough, then," she smiles. "Your Persona...is remarkably powerful. It killed that Shadow within minutes. If I were fighting it by myself, it likely would've taken the whole Dark Hour."

"Hey, your Persona wasn't _useless_. She held it off for us, while we got to Runako. And it saved us on the staircase, from all those...creepy baby _things_..."

"What?" her voice rises.

I shrug. "I remember that much, at least...do you not?"

"I don't think that happened."

What? "No, I- your _Persona_ , it was a blue knight-woman with an armored helmet and a small crown on her head. She swung two blades around and fought like she was dancing."

She just blinks at me. "How do you know what my Persona looks like?"

"Because I _saw_ it! You summoned it to protect me! To protect all of us!"

"By the time I summoned her, you'd fallen unconscious," is all she says, frowning now.

I don't know how to answer that. "I'm sure at least _that_ happened. I-I only forgot the last bit of the fight..."

"What else do you remember?"

"We were on the roof. Runako was in my arms. My eyes were bleeding. The Shadow was burning alive, it charged at me and then...a crunching noise. After that, nothing." She looks completely lost. "You don't remember _any_ of that?"

"The instant the Shadow's hand broke through the window of the room we were in, you summoned your Persona." What? "Your Persona galloped through the wall and sent the Shadow tumbling to the streets." _What?_ "They both landed on a car, which exploded-" _What!?_ "-and from there you killed it-"

"That didn't happen," I tell her. " _None_ of that happened."

She scoffs, folding her arms. "I'm certain that's what happened. Amada-san will back me up."

"Who?"

"Amada-san. The woman who contacted us through mental transmission."

"The lady who spoke in our heads?"

"Yes, exactly."

"She _must_ have seen... One of us is misremembering things here."

"What else do you remember?"

I wrack my brain for an answer to try and convince her. But I realize there's only one that really sticks in my head.

"I was in too much pain. We were running through the halls...I was coughing up blood. Everything on me _hurt_. I begged you to leave me, take Runako and get away as fast as you could. You wouldn't... and you said you were experimented on too."

Her eyes widen and she's unable to find a single word to say.

"Do you remember that...?"

"Who...who told you that...?" she cupped her mouth as her eyes began to water.

"H-hey, wait-"

" _I_...I don't even...," she takes a deep breath, before straightening her back and making her gaze fierce. "I don't...remember telling you that."

Minutes ago she was confident and poised and happy to see me alive. Now she looks like she doesn't even wanna _be_ alive.

"You...went through what Runako and I went through...?" is all I can really mutter.

Her lip quivers for a moment before she exhales, looking away from me and folding her arms again. "My father was on a business trip for the all of last July. Halfway through the month...my grandfather arranged for me to undergo an 'operation.' "My father returned two weeks later...and so did I."

"Why?" I growl. "Your father didn't even know...?"

Her voice shakes as she hunches over.

"...no. I..."

And in her I see myself, huddled up in a cold cell, waiting for everything to end. I see Runako on the table next to me, being torn apart and put back together. I see doctors and surgeons and medical practitioners stitching us up and doing terrible things to our insides.

The anger allows me to say something foolish, something I start out with a scoff, "He couldn't even tell his own daughter was-?"

Something she quickly rebuts with a slap.

My cheek turns sore as I see her eyes freeze into a cold hard glare. " _Take that back_!" And as the rage in her eyes simmers the room goes colder, so much _colder_ it's like I'm stuck in a meat locker, I wrap my arms around myself and she leans closer and closer- "My father didn't know a thing. He couldn't. I _chose_ not to tell him, to protect him! Don't you _dare_ blame him for _any_ of this!"

And I freeze, for the room has grown so bitingly cold I can feel my lips chap and my spine lock up and my fingers stuck in place-

"My grandfather...threatened me," she seethes. "If I told my father in any way, he would've done...so much worse to him."

And I can't bear to face her.

"Does he know now?"

"Once he procured files on you, he found some about _me_. And it's all just...," she puts a hand over her eyes. "It's just one more thing he blames himself for."

She doesn't sob. She doesn't breathe heavily or let any of the anger show. She just lets herself stay, stewing in this sadness. Unwilling to even look me in the eyes.

I say all I can say. "I'm sorry."

"No," she sighs. " _I'm_ sorry. You and Shiomi...have both been through so much worse than I."

"Let's not _compare_ , I mean...," I shake my head. "I'm sorry. I just...keep thinking back to my parents. Runako's parents. But your dad, he..."

"He isn't like them. Not even a little."

I nod. "I believe you."

And she turns to me. Though her lips are pursed and her eyes are watery, she nods back in understanding. Within moments the room no longer feels like the ninth circle of Hell.

"How did you even know...? Did I really tell you?"

"Yes. You did. You were...crying, then."

At that, we both feel there's nothing more to add upon the subject.

I ask her one last thing. "Can you take me to see Runako?"

She raises an eyebrow, "Can you walk?"

I swing my legs off the bed and stand up, perfectly fine.

I'm face-first into the ground seconds after I take my first step.

Mitsuru grabs her crutches, "I'll have them send up a wheelchair."

* * *

Runako is awake.

Still hooked up to a heart monitor. Quiet. But alive. She's wrapped in less bandages now than before, and from the hints of skin I can see on her, I see healed but gnarled scars; none are disfiguring in any way, but one would still be able to _see_ them. Each tells a story on its own; though God help anyone unfortunate enough to listen to them.

 _This was when my parents decided to see how much blood they could siphon without killing me_. Or, _this was when the scientists vivisected me to get a good look at my intestines_. Or, _This was when they thought electroshock therapy would cause me sufficient levels of stress to-_

_to_

_to_

_to._

Her eyes are wide open. Staring at the ceiling. I've called her name multiple times. Not even a blink. She doesn't even turn to face me. She's just stuck still. Eyes blank and open, like she's already dead.

"I see something in my dreams," I tell Mitsuru. "Whenever I sleep, even if only for a second. It's something that... _sings_ and screams, and has a million eyes. It never tells me anything. I just _see_ it. I don't try to think about it during the day because when I do, my brain feels like it's collapsing in on itself."

"Even now?"

"Yeah," I grunt at her. "Have you...ever had these kinds of dreams...?"

"I don't dream," she says sternly. "At least not that much anymore. I'll make sure to inform my father what you've seen. If nothing else we might be able to understand more of the effects of my grandfather's tests..."

"Thank you," I tell her, turning to Runako. "Would she be seeing the same things I do...?"

"Apparently, she does exhibit rapid eye movement during evenings. A sign of...intense dreaming."

" _Every_ night?"

"Most nights. Some nights, she's...peaceful. Inasmuch as she can be."

Immediately something cold burns in the center of my chest, and I begin imagining all the terrible things I'd do to her parents if ever I could get my hands on them.

"Will she remember anything...?"

"Probably not," says Mitsuru.

"Why?"

"We found her with...," she shudders, "shrapnel. Lodged in her brain. She's likely suffering from brain damage."

I don't say anything. Not for a long time.

"She and I played together. Her parents...they were so _nice_ to me. They were all so...happy. I always enjoyed going to her house, eating the food her parents'd cook us. But after all that, almost every night, I'd hear her father's voice on the intercom, giving the surgeons a step-by-step briefing on the proper way to vivisect us. Every other night, I'd see her mother wiping down the blood off the steel tables with multiple small towels."

Her face softens.

"Her father was a schoolteacher." I clutch Runako's hand tighter. "There's so much I don't remember from before the experiments...but I remember that much. How could your grandfather do that to us?"

Mitsuru doesn't answer the question. She does, however, put a hand over my shoulder.

We go to our respective rooms and sleep early that night.

The pain in my raptured body remains dull.

* * *

The following night, just as I'm about to sleep, someone enters my room.

I see a tall man in a dark suit. He bears a hard-edged face and carries himself like a man deprived of everything that had once made him eager to live. One of his eyes is covered by an eyepatch. Slowly he approaches the bed, and the terror I feel gives way; for the closer he comes, the more something in me sees a wailing agony behind his remaining eye.

Following behind him is a man with long flowing brown hair, tied up in a ponytail. A plastic face and a half-insincere smile; he wears glasses and the way he looks at me is like how one would upon a slab of meat.

The eyepatched man speaks. "You are Sakuya Mochizuki, correct?"

At that moment, I know exactly who he is. "You're Mitsuru's father."

He just nods. "She's spoken of me?"

"Yes...," is all I can come up with in the face of him.

"What else has she told you?"

I take a deep breath, "There's a twenty-fifth hour in the day where people turn into coffins and everything turns green and bloody. We were attacked by a thing called a Shadow. I used something called a Persona to kill it."

Things stay silent for a few more seconds.

"Then you know enough," he sighs.

"Where is she...?"

"I told her that I wanted to meet with you personally, privately," he says. "But if you'd you like her to be here, I'll have her come immediately."

Something in me that hates all the delays that've come my way so far makes me say, "No."

"Very well," he clears his throat before gesturing to the man in the glasses, "This is Shuji Ikutsuki; one of my top advisors. He bears extensive knowledge on the Shadows and the Dark Hour. If you have any questions, you may ask him."

"Pleasure to meet you," he smiles, giving his hand out.

Hesitantly I shake it, and even then it's not so much a _shake_ as it is a brisk meeting of my palm with his.

"You were awfully brave to put up a fight against that Shadow," He runs his hand through my hair, messing it about, and in seconds I feel like I've been touched by a slime monster - so I wriggle and recoil until he pulls back.

"Ikutsuki," the father pulls him back, "he's been through a lot. Don't push him."

"My apologies," he laughs, "I was a little caught up in the moment. Forgive me."

"I'm...alright," I tell them both. "But I have so many more questions."

"Do you think you're ready to hear the answers to them?"

I don't respond. For a time. For a long time.

I just keep my head down.

Because my heart's threatening to jump out my chest.

Because I remember so many things; all the gore all the sweat all the tears, the horrors they'd put us through for what seemed like no reason whatsoever. Runako on the bloody table. Runako stuck in her bed, catatonic and shell-shocked. The giant multi-armed beast that would've ripped us apart had it gotten to us. Mitsuru's eyes, full of tears, as she desperately tries to get me and Runako to the roof. My parents looking down on me and saying they love me while they make me feel pain I wouldn't wish on even them.

Ikutsuki tells me, "You can be scared. If this is all so much to take in, we'll always be one call away. Feel free to ask us whenever you're ready-"

"I'm ready."

He's surprised and says nothing more; Kirijo lets nothing show.

"I want to know," I tell them.

Kirijo moves forward, kneeling down such that our eyes are level. "Are you sure?"

I don't let anything show, either. "Yes."

* * *

The ensuing setup takes fifteen minutes or so. Ikutsuki's laptop wouldn't read the projector for a while, despite the cords connecting perfectly. All the while Takeharu Kirijo looks like he didn't want to be where he was, didn't want to even see me in any conceivable fashion. But they kept at it and once he had gotten the projector to shine directly on the white wall across from me, he opens a folder that's labelled _OP._

Takeharu Kirijo begins, "You will know the truth, before anything else. It was called _Operation: Paradox_. The plan, at first, was to use it to help mankind…through the creation of a time manipulation device.

"Imagine if you could control the flow of time... eliminate unwanted events before they occur. With such a device, you could shape the future to your liking. Go back in time, cure any unwanted ills. Of course, it was dangerous. But the possibilities were endless. Potentially beneficial. There was so much that my father believed could have been done. We adults are to blame. If I could've atoned for it with my life, I would have done so."

It takes him time to respond. A long time. "Under my father's direction, the research began to stray from its original goal. In his later years, my father seemed to have only nihilism in his heart. Now that I think about it, his madness may have resulted from his struggle to break free from that. It's only natural that you want to know the truth...and it's my duty to tell you.

"Luckily, I was able to recover footage of the incident that led us to find you," Ikutsuki says, "It was recorded by a scientist who was at the scene. From here, we will discuss everything we know to you. Would you like to see?"

It takes me a moment. Only a moment. "Show me."

Ikutsuki opens a video from the folder titled _a2034_ , and it plays from the projector to the wall.

* * *

_"I pray that this recording reaches safe hands..."_

_There is a crack on the screen, as though something had broken the camera prior to recording. We hear screams and there are dark lashes of matter flying all over the place. Causing gashes in the steel. Steel panels fly by as more people scream, dark shades that resemble bodies flying in the air and crashing into the walls. There is a shape visible on-screen. Dark and glitchy, but a shape nonetheless._

_"My employer has become obsessed with a loathsome idea. This experiment should have never even been conceived..."_

_He's coughing, hacking up pixellated shades of red._

_"I'm afraid what I've done will result in an unprecedented disaster. But if I hadn't, the entire world may have paid the price. Please, listen carefully..."_

_He's gripping the screen now and he's struggling to breathe, struggling to make out words-_

_"...the Shadows that were amassed here have been dispersed as a result of the explosion. To end this nightmare, you must eliminate all of them! I am to blame for this. I knew the risks, but I was blinded by the promise of success. And so, I didn't raise any objections...it is all my fault..."_

_The last few seconds are the only moments I see his face clearly; almond eyes, stubble along his chin. He looks like he wants to die. And judging by how the film cuts out after a roaring noise, we can assume he does._

* * *

"His name was Eiichiro Takeba. He was the head researcher at the time, and a very talented man. But, we pushed him. Far beyond the point where we ever should have. The Kirijo Group is to blame for his death."

"The time-manipulation device would have been accessed through the use of creatures from another world," says Ikutsuki.

Immediately the thought registers to me: this should sound ridiculous.

But it doesn't.

I enter another world every midnight. And a creature from another world attacked me two nights ago.

"We call them...Shadows," Ikutsuki says. "We believed that use creatures such as this would have greatly benefitted us in future generations...but not even I knew the depths of madness Koetsu had been willing to stoop to. Right under my nose, he'd been kidnapping children in the hopes of breaching our realm and theirs."

"Why would experimenting on us help them in any way?"

"The realm from which they come...is not a physical one. It's something you access, largely through the human mind, the human consciousness," says Takeharu Kirijo. "Children were what my father determined were perfect test subjects in their attempts to access that realm; specifically children on the streets, and children the scientists were willing to...give up, for the sake of further research. Everything they had done to you, was done in an attempt to-"

"That doesn't answer anything. How would _torturing us_ help them access this place?"

Takeharu clears his throat. "We can only hypothesize at this point. I don't know what my father had been planning or thinking, in his madness...but whatever purpose my father had for his experiments on all of you, it culminated in the creation of what we call the Dark Hour."

I look down upon my hands. Disgusted.

Takeharu Kirijo cuts in, "But his plans were halted by Eiichiro Takeba's intervention, culminating in the destruction of the facility...leading to us finding you and Runako Shiomi alone in the rubble, and a new twenty-fifth Hour wherein the skies turn green."

Thinking about it now causes bile and acids to rise up in my throat, and I manage to stop my hands from shaking when I growl, "How could experimenting on us lead to _all of this_?"

"You are kept alive through inhuman means," Kirijo continues, his voice wavering as though he's trying to stifle his emotion.

Ikutsuki cuts in, "The experiments conducted upon you and Runako Shiomi should have left you both dead within days. Yet here you are. Alive, though experiencing chronic pains in every part of your bodies. Koetsu Kirijo tried to create a time-manipulation device through research on Shadows; they are living paradoxes that transcend our meager understanding of reality. To sustain your viability as a test subject, they must have used their knowledge of Shadows to keep you from dying."

He says all that like he's reading off a grocery list, and all at once I decide I really don't like this person and hope I never get to interact with him for prolonged periods of time.

I grit my teeth then, some nagging feeling at the back of my head telling me things that were being unspoken. "What do you want with me and Runako?"

Kirijo's stare is firm, but there's something in his eyes he's trying quite hard to keep together.

"We no longer have time. _Something_ went wrong, Sakuya Mochizuki. The Shadows are invading our world through the hidden Hour you see every night at midnight...and they're stronger than my father could have ever predicted."

I scoff at him, "So you want me to fix your father's mess...?"

"I want you to fight and help us protect this world. But it is still your choice. I cannot force you to fight for us, especially not after everything that's happened to you. But we are running out of options."

His eyes are so...desperate. "You want me to protect your daughter."

Takeharu closes his eyes.

"My daughter has dedicated herself to the task of ridding the world of the Dark Hour. She wants to redeem our family for the sins of my father. She is fully determined to see this path to the bitter end, even at the cost of her own life. I cannot let her go down this path alone. Not with everything I've seen, everything at risk."

"You people just want to use me _again_ ," I grit my teeth and tears begin streaming down my eyes, "Use me and use Runako and have us all choke and die for your sakes again-"

"It's your choice."

I pause then. My breaths are heavy, eyes red; Kirijo lets me calm down before speaking further.

"If you choose not to ally yourself with the Kirijo Group, you'll be sent off to a good family. I'll even erase your identity and give you a new one, if you'd like. You'll be recompensed immensely for everything you've suffered under my father's abuses of power, from now until the day you die. But if you choose to help us...you'll be able to stop the madness he left behind. Or at the very least stem the tide."

Of course the first thought that comes to my head is _No_. But the second is of Runako's little hand in mine, as she lays motionless in her hospital bed. The third, is of my parents watching coldly as scientists dissect my spine and drain out my guts. The fourth is of a million-eyed monstrosity whose whole body is the universe itself.

The fifth is Mitsuru, split in half, her guts exposed and purpling in the air, blood pooling under her, her eyes wide and watery and staring at a dark sky.

And I realize.

I realize why Mitsuru's memory of the fight was so different from mine.

"M-Mochizuki...?"

I keel over, cupping my hand over my face; something in me wants to scream. It wants to vomit and hurl and tear this cage I call a body apart. Kirijo grabs me by my shoulders and cries, "Mochizuki-!"

"If I _join you_ ," I seethe, just barely keeping it together, "and Runako comes to her senses, she stays out of this."

His eyes take a moment to harden. He keeps his eyes on me, firm and steady and stoic. Doesn't dare turn away.

"Very well."

"You send her to another family. One that'll take care of her. Have them adopt her. Raise her as far away from here as possible."

"All that can be arranged."

"You'll never ever have her come back here, not even if I or your daughter die in this fight. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely."

I glare at him.

I take many deep breaths.

I tell him, "We have a deal."

I don't tell him that I saw his daughter die, all those nights ago.

Nor do I tell him how I brought her back to life.

* * *

It takes me hours to go to sleep.

But it happens. When it does, everything that had happened all those nights ago, it all crashes into me at once.

First I hear the crunching noise again.

When the blood pours down it doesn't do so smoothly; it's viscous and thick, because along with it comes bits of flesh and bone. It pours and keeps pouring like a waterfall of red, pooling at the roof and sinking into the crevaces. I find the courage to tear my head upward but I find that Runako's body is folded in such a way a human body ought not to be. Her eyes are vacant and staring at me as the hands mold her like a potter to clay - pressing against her more and more and more, and as they keep crushing her the blood keeps pouring.

The Magician is coated in smoke and smells of burnt meat. Pieces of it have fallen away or been rendered into cinders; the fires were put out when the Pale Rider had been put down. As such Runako doesn't burn when she's being mangled to death, violated indescribably before my eyes. I am paralyzed - not because of the pain storming its way through my veins, not because of the terror of my imminent death, but because the one person I said I would never leave again is dead and crushed and made into a mess of blood and body parts that cannot even be recognized as a person.

I hear Mitsuru scream and I see a knightess barrel into the Magician, stabbing into it over and over and over again but it is not long before she too is consumed, before the arms pull her in an embrace and twist and turn and shatter her into blue shards that dissipate entirely. I hear Mitsuru crumple and see her keel over in her agony as the Shadow charges at her, too-

One arm grabs her by her long red locks and another, by her left leg.

Her death is nowhere near as theatrical or prolonged as Runako's. It is quick but bloody all the same. Mitsuru screams for a moment, only a moment, when a third arm shoves a blade through her spine and out her stomach, and the act of pulling her in two becomes all the easier.

It just drops her halves when it's done.

Her guts are exposed and purpling in the air. There is blood pooling under her, her eyes wide and watery and staring at a dark sky.

By the time it turns to me its other arms drop what it has made Runako's corpse into. And as it approaches me its arms grow back; four more for each one burnt up or stabbed into, procuring blades seemingly from out of nowhere. It no longer shambles or writhes in agony but it walks slowly, carefully, as though straining with every step.

Its arms grow so numerous they seem to encompass the sky itself, and I do nothing nor say nothing nor feel anything before a black hand reaches out and wraps its fingers around my small head-

.

.

.

* * *

_**death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey.** _   
_**one is always aware that it lies in wait.** _

_**though life is merely a journey to the grave,** _   
_**it must not be undertaken without hope.** _

_**only then will a traveler's story live on,** _   
_**cherished by those who bid him farewell.** _

_**but your journey shall not end here.** _

* * *

_._

_._

_._

_Mo Chi Zu Ki_

I hear again and again.

_Mo Chi Zu Ki_

The voice is feminine and I recognize it from another place, another time.

I see a teary-eyed girl with red hair.

"Mochizuki," she breathes, "We have to get you out of here."

"Mitsuru...!" I cry out, tears welling up in my own eyes, "Y-you're alive!"

"Are you alright!?" she exclaims, "Has anything tried to-!?"

A voice rings in my head; feminine and terrified and urgent, _~ Mitsuru! Mochizuki! Can you both hear me!? ~_

"I-I hear you!" she cries out. "What's happening!?"

"Are there any up on the roof!?"

_~ No! It - it might just be our only option...! ~_

"Damn it," Mitsuru grunts. "We'll have to get up on the roof. Take the fight to them up there."

" _No_ ," I tell her. "We fight it _here_."

I scramble out of bed, my feet landing heel-first into the cold hard hospital floor - and then my knees, then my face.

"S-Sakuya...!"

Agony screeches across my frame, bolts of lighting blaring through every nerve and artery and neuron as I suppress what would otherwise be a scream so loud you'd hear it from the other side of the city.

Mitsuru hoists my arm up over her shoulders as I cough up blood and sweat floods down my back, "A-are you...!?" I say something she and I can't even hear, my voice murmuring when it should be screaming and she cries, "Wh-what!?"

" _We have to fight it_ _now...!_ "

The building shakes once more, and more things get shattered and more stones crumble and a thrashing sound occurs just outside of my room.

Then we hear the bellow of a beast. Screaming at decibels impossible for men to achieve.

I look right out the window because I've been here before. I've done _all of this already._ The sky is a deep, emerald green; red streaks of rain pour down upon the world; the endless music I've already seen this. I have been here before. I have returned.

And I very nearly freeze in terror because I don't know what this is or what's just happened but I am here and I am alive and so's Mitsuru, and likely so is Runako. We're all alive and not dead and whatever had happened up on that roof didn't happen at all or doesn't have to happen and I can make it so it never happens again.

do you dare wipe away the horizon?

do you dare drink up the sea?

A giant black hand places itself upon the glass of my window.

then judge, and be judged.

" _PALE RIDER!"_

A pale horse emerges from my skull. His name that sits upon him is Death, and Hell follows him. I grab his black cowl and follow him through, as he arcs his scythe in the air but once - instantly the wall is blasted away. Before long, the scythe hooks its blade into one of the Magician's many arms and the Rider pulls it away from the side of the hospital, the blade curves it downward and in moments it's under the hooves of the Pale Horse.

We are falling down down down to the bottom of the world and it's at this point I notice a car's down below.

So I jump away twenty seconds before landing-

BOOM

-by the time I return to my senses I see a smoldering, burning wreck of a car. In the flames I see a skeleton, cloaked in dark; he and his pale blue eyed horse stand over an unmoving mess of arms all mangled into each other and burning _burning again, hopefully they burn forever and ever and ever_ , the arms still wriggle and scream and bellow with life and hatred and everything that should not exist.

"Stomp," is all I say.

The horse pounds its mighty hooves into the beast like a winepress to grapes. Black blood everywhere, scattering blindly; it stomps and keeps on stomping and I never tell it to stop and I keep seeing Runako's crumpled body and Mitsuru's corpse torn in half, I see my parents putting me under a knife and telling me they love me, I see a million eyes gazing upon me from all across the universe and

I

Hope

They're

All

**Watching-**

**_KRACK_ **

I clutch my head and cry out in horror as the Pale Rider and his steed rear themselves up-though my brain's splitting apart I keep my eyes open and I see, I see I see I see the Pale Rider's robes consumed in dark fire, the Pale Rider lets out a scream with a voice that sounds like my own but it stops and goes deeper, stronger, viler and more violent-

**_Thou art I._ **

**_I am Thou._ **

To my eyes his white arms span the sky itself. Eight coffins hang over his back like wings, strung together by chains. His body is adorned in leather robes decorated with silver buttons, and he bears a helm like a dragon's skull - he throws his left arm back and brandishes a blade that could carve off the electrons from an atom. It cuts up the arms with no precision or grace, just mindless reckless violence and it screams, its screams could produce nightmares all on their own-

And I watch it as it tears apart the arms beneath it. I watch it use its mighty hands to rip and tear it until it is bits and pieces of sludge. I watch the arms splutter about and hear the Magician scream, scream so loudly and so wonderfully I could make the whole world my own. I watch all of this happen and as I do, the giant beast hunches over and breathes in much the same way I do; labored, carried by an ecstatic rage no one else can take away from me.

_**From the Sea of thy Soul, I cometh.** _

_**I am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.  
**_

* * *

When I collapse to my knees in the dream, I awaken in the real world.

It is morning.

For what feels like hours I just lie there in bed and stare at the ceiling.

I do not know when or if I can tell Mitsuru or _anyone else_ of what I'm capable of. It's impossible for me to tell her how she was ripped in half, or how Runako was crushed into her own body. Not without sounding like I've gone mad.

But perhaps I have gone mad. In some way that might be more comforting a thought.

Because for all my talk of how I wanted to protect Runako.

For all the hatred I felt towards the Magician for killing her and Mitsuru.

For all the horror my parents had put me through.

In the end there is really only one reason why I chose to accept Takeharu Kirijo's offer.

The Dark Hour must be put to an end.

And I am the only one who can die, as many times as necessary, in order to make that happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I have heard of Re-Zero, but haven't gotten to watching it yet. This was more based on Dark Souls and Bloodborne than anything else, haha.
> 
> This was basically the major reason I wanted to do this fic; wanted to try out a P3 novelization where we see how an MC would react to being able to respawn upon death, and what actions he would take after the fact. How would this change or affect his personality? How would it affect his friends, and most importantly, how would it affect the Shadows?
> 
> The Bible stuff was added in because I loooove me some Biblical symbolism. Plus it fits; Sakuya can resurrect himself, but it's hardly anything like Jesus' resurrection. It'll all be explained in later chapters.
> 
> Hope you liked this chapter, see you soon.


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